Amsterdam and TomTom Aim to Create 'Smarter' City

TomTom and the City of Amsterdam will collaborate on the development of traffic and travel concepts to improve traffic flow and parking in the Dutch capital.

“This cooperation will make the city of Amsterdam smarter. That’s good news for the accessibility, traffic flow and air quality in the city,” said Deputy Mayor Pieter Litjens. “For example, if your navigation system sends you straight away to a free parking spot, it’ll save you countless kilometers of pointless driving around searching one. Thanks to TomTom’s insights, we will be able to look very specifically at the outcome of measures we take and see how effective they were. That way, we can continuously improve traffic and mobility throughout Amsterdam.”

Using the insights from TomTom’s Traffic data, the city government will be able to make better decisions about accessibility and mobility throughout the city. As a result of the agreement, traffic measures, such as road closures in the city center, will be monitored in more detail, leading to rapid intervention if changes occur in the traffic situation. The cooperation will enable TomTom to gain even more insights into the needs of a city in terms of mobility and to further develop products to help a city’s mobility in the smartest way possible, according to the company.

Map: TomTom

“This agreement adds to our ambition of making smarter cities of the future a reality,” said Ralf-Peter Schäfer, VP traffic and travel at TomTom. “TomTom’s ability to advise local authorities as well as consumers makes it uniquely placed to create better mobility for the City of Amsterdam. Our real-time travel information enables rapid response on changing traffic conditions and historical travel information enables better planning as well as an improved traffic distribution by utilizing the whole available infrastructure.”